Women's Ice Hockey

Clegg, Swiontkowski score

AMHERST, MA - The top-ranked Amherst College women's ice hockey team completed an impressive sweep of the two-game season series with NESCAC and Little Three archrival Wesleyan University with a 5-0 win this afternoon. The Lord Jeffs (2-0-0/2-0-0 NESCAC) will take to the road for their next nine games, before returning home on January 12, 2011 to play Utica College.

After opening the 2010-11 season with a 7-0 win over the Cardinals last night, the two-time defending national champion Lord Jeffs improved to 2-0-0 for the fourth straight season after today's result. The loss drops Wesleyan to 0-2-0 (0-2-0) on the year. After winning the two meetings last season by a combined score of 15-0, Amherst has won the last four meetings with Wesleyan by a 27-0 margin.

Today's first period marked the only time in the two games this weekend that the Cardinals held the Lord Jeffs off the scoreboard. The Jeffs held a 30-3 edge in shots during the stanza, but Wesleyan netminder Ashleigh Corvi made all 30 saves required to keep Amherst's potent offense at bay after one frame.

Less than three minutes into the second period, Amherst junior Stephanie Clegg (Woburn, MA) scored her second goal of the season on a redirection in front of Corvi. Off a slap shot from the point by Randi Zukas (Glen Head, NY), Clegg got the blade of her stick to the puck to knock it cleanly under a sprawling Corvi. Ellen Swiontkowski (Minnetonka, MN) received the second assist on the score, which would stand as the eventual game-winner.

With 11:14 to play in the second period Amherst stretched its lead to 2-0 on an even-strength goal by Courtney Hanlon (Fullerton, CA) off an assist by Clegg. In the final two minutes of the second, Josie Fisher (Norwich, VT) added Amherst's third goal of the day.

Amherst tacked on its fourth goal with 12:02 to play in the third off the stick of senior Julia Koch (Rochester Hills, MI). The Jeffs' fifth and final goal came with just over three minutes to play, as sophomore Geneva Lloyd (Calgary, Alberta) scored from just inside the right circle on an assist by Zukas.

Junior goaltender Sinead Murphy (Rochester, MN) played the first two periods in net for Amherst, making three saves before giving way to rookie Kerri Stuart (Tewksbury, MA). Stuart made a trio saves to complete the shutout for Amherst. Corvi allowed all five goals in net for Wesleyan, but was impressive at times en route to 70 saves.